


Average Nights

by Rylescoe



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M, Robot Gerard Way, Scientist Frank Iero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 12:41:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16974750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rylescoe/pseuds/Rylescoe
Summary: Frank always thought that if something big were to happen in his life, it would happen on a day that felt unique. That’s what happened in movies and books, anyway. ‘On a dark and stormy night,’ or whatever. He figured that ominous or strange events would settle themselves in ominous or strange times. But it was a perfectly average—albeit boring—night, walking back from the lab, when he saw the torn-up, outstretched leg of a ModX Android.





	Average Nights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MyChemicalFallOutBoyRomance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyChemicalFallOutBoyRomance/gifts).



> The only reason I’m posting this is because it’s 3am and I wrote this all in one go just now, and I’m not giving myself time to hate it. 
> 
> For Vintage: it’s about time I post something dedicated to you. Sorry it’s not all of the other things I promised to dedicate to you, V. I’ll get on those at some point.

Frank always thought that if something big were to happen in his life, it would happen on a day that felt unique. That’s what happened in movies and books, anyway. ‘On a dark and stormy night,’ or whatever. He figured that ominous or strange events would settle themselves in ominous or strange times. But it was a perfectly average—albeit boring—night, walking back from the lab, when he saw the torn-up, outstretched leg of a ModX Android. 

Where the siliskin was ripped away, even in the dark, the exposed metal ‘muscles’ of the Android reflected orange flashes from a flickering streetlight. Red streaks of oil dripped from the lacerations and smeared all the way up to where Frank assumed the rest of the body was sitting, behind the corner of a dumpster.

He looked around. It was close to 2400 hours, so the streets were lacking their usual bustle, and even with the streetlamps, flickery as they were, it was dark. He peered past the dumpster and down the alley it resided in, checking for anything out of the ordinary. He wasn’t far from the lab, which meant he was still in the Industrial Science District, or at least adjacent to it. 

Frank looked around the street once again, and, after assuring himself of its abandoned state, ducked into the alley.

The smell of hot oil seemed to emanate in thicker waves as he got closer to the Android, stirring mixed emotions in his chest. Excitement, because hot oil meant the Android was up and running, but concern because it begged several questions. Whose Android was this? What was it doing in an alley by a dumpster? ModXs weren’t cheap, they were still relatively new, and Frank couldn’t think of a single reason someone would dump one here. If it was a dud from the Factory, it would’ve been stripped for parts there or gone into the Factory waste disposal. More importantly, though, it wouldn’t be running. 

Frank hesitated when he was just a step away from being able to see the rest of the body. What if something sketchy was going on here - did he _really_ want to get involved? Maybe he should just mind his own business. He looked over his shoulder at the street, and then back at the Android’s extended leg. 

Frank was one of the few people at the lab who were open to the idea of Androids being capable of emotional responses. Feelings. It was a notion that was looked down upon by the rest of the scientific community for its ‘ridiculousness’, and those who thought Androids were capable of emotions were frequently mocked for being the ‘mad scientist’ type - and not in a positive way. Many CEOs refused to hire scientists who thought that Androids could have feelings. Some even fired people who already worked for them, if it was found out that they believed it could be possible. Frank was lucky he worked under Dr. Toro, because although Dr. Toro didn’t believe the theory himself, he never judged people who did, and would certainly never fire anyone for it. Frank was thankful for him every day. 

So it was because of this ‘irrational and unprofessional’ belief that Frank decided he had to figure out what was going on with this ModX. If Frank was the one lying there, cut up behind a dumpster, heart still beating but bleeding out, he could not imagine anything more upsetting than someone seeing him, walking up, raising his hopes, and then turning around and leaving him. He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. So he took the last step forward and looked at the Android. 

It was even darker with the dumpster blocking the light from the streetlamps, but from what Frank could make out, the Android was an XY ModX. Its head hung forward like it was asleep, but when Frank knelt down at its side, he heard the faint hum of a running system and sighed quietly in relief. It didn’t turn to look at him, which he was grateful for. He was so not prepared for a horror-movie-style death, and, since it didn’t move at all, it was a relatively safe bet that the Android was in a self-induced comatose state. It didn’t want to shut down in case it couldn’t boot back up, but, to prevent further injury, it temporarily paralysed itself. That made it easier for Frank to check it over for problems. 

The Android was wearing a standard ModX uniform, ruffled and torn and stained with oil, but otherwise completely normal. Thankfully, there were no deep wounds in the chest area, at least that he could see in the dark, which meant that most of the vital circuits were probably fine. The arms were a little more torn up than the legs, but there was less oil all over the place, and that was good. Frank sat back on his heels and looked the Android over again. 

Everything that he could see, he could fix. He focused on that fact as he gathered the Android in his arms and stood, carrying it out of the alley and toward his house. 

He didn’t think about why, if it was a straightforward enough fix that even _he_ could do it by himself, a new, expensive ModX would be left for dead behind a dumpster. He didn’t _want_ to think about it.

-

It took Frank three days of nonstop work with only sleep, smoke, and bathroom breaks to fix the Android. He was lucky Dr. Toro wasn’t too uptight about scheduling and still owed him a handful of vacation days, or it might’ve taken weeks. After getting the Android onto his examination table that night, he’d carefully cut the uniform off and rushed to reconnect each severed oil tube before it lost too much liquid and shut down completely. He attached the circuit monitors and gave the Android an oil IV. When the monitors displayed consistent circuit readings for a whole hour, Frank wrapped the worst of the wounds, and, since it was nearing 0500, called Dr. Toro, told him he was cashing in a whole week of vacation days, and passed the fuck out.

It was the most sleep he’d get until he was done. Everything after that night was a blur of repairing and studying, studying and repairing, sleeping and smoking and studying some more. He worked in the labs like everyone else in Sector Two, knew the basics about Androids, but he was far from being an expert on ModXs, so he read up on their structure and systems before his ignorance could fuck up anything beyond repair. 

When the siliskin around the last cut was melted back together, Frank could finally sit back and admire the fruit of his labor. 

He couldn’t wait to wake it up. He’d kept the Android in its comatose state during the repairs, so he hadn’t had the chance to talk to it yet, and after spending pretty much all of the last seventy-two hours by its side, he had grown somewhat attached. He would even go as far as to say he considered it a friend. He didn’t want to think about how pathetic that was.

-

He watched the ModX’s vitals for a whole day after he was finished, just to be sure that everything was running smoothly, before removing the oil IV and circuit monitors. He placed his palm gently on the ModX’s stomach, where he’d read that the command center was located, and was reassured when he felt humming warmth under the soft, pale siliskin. 

He took a deep breath. “Activate. Override comatose state.”

When several long seconds passed with no response, Frank’s heart fell. What did he do wrong? Did he miss something? Was the Android a dud after all?

He hadn’t even considered that it wouldn’t wake up. He should’ve checked more thoroughly for internal issues. Maybe a port was broken, or the primary drives weren’t communicating with each other like they should’ve been. Maybe it was just the paralysis feature that was glitching, and it wouldn’t wake up even if the internal connections were working perfectly. It only takes one broken cog to bring down a whole machine.

Frank sighed. He had been so geared up, so ready to meet the person who’d taken precedence over his mind for so long. He gazed at the expanses of creamy siliskin, devoid of red stains because of his care, and felt his heart reach the lowest point of sinking, like an anchor at the bottom of the ocean. 

And then the Android moved under his hand. _Shivered_. 

Frank was so surprised he nearly fell backward on principle. He took a step to get a better view of its face, and just a couple seconds later, the Android’s eyes fluttered open. That was another thing Frank didn’t expect - _fluttering_. There was no reason an Android’s eyelids would flutter. That was… strange. But then Frank looked into its eyes, and he couldn’t give a single flying fuck about the eyelids. 

Its eyes were stunning. Frank would call them astonishingly human, though he felt that that would be an insult to their beauty. The greens and browns in the irises seemed to shift and spin, and every so often a sparkling flow of gold would shimmer on the surface before fading again. It was like watching ink twirl behind the Android’s eyes. Frank was captivated. He moved forward to look closer again and, like a strike of lightning, the Android’s gaze, previously aimed at the ceiling above, snapped to Frank’s face. He felt like somebody had knocked the wind out of him. He’d never seen anything with eyes like that before. He’d never seen anything like that before, _period_.

The ModX tilted its head at him, and Frank choked out an unsteady, “H-Hi.”

“Hello.” Its voice was just as incredible and unexpected as its eyes. A little raspy, and higher-pitched than Frank would’ve expected, like somebody had messed with its vocal cords. It also lacked the sort of mechanical accent that usually accompanied Androids; this one’s voice was smooth, and could easily be mistaken for human. Because he had never really talked with a ModX before, Frank supposed that they could all have voices like this. He wouldn’t know. For some reason, though, he doubted it.

He cleared his throat. “Pronouns, model?”

When the Android spoke again, he really had to focus to understand what it was saying. The combination of the soft voice and breathtaking eyes trained on him made a swarm of butterflies materialise in his stomach.

“Typical Masculine or Standard Neutral pronouns. Model X, subcategory XY.”

Frank nodded his understanding. “Do you have a name?”

“Gerard.” 

Frank smiled at that. Gerard. It suited him. But if he had a name, that meant he had a previous owner, or supervisor in some form. Frank’s hand tensed where it still was on the curve of Gerard’s stomach, and the Android looked down at it in surprise, like he hadn’t realized it was there. No longer held captive by Gerard’s gaze, Frank slowly came back to himself and started checking for anything out of the ordinary.

He didn’t have to look far. Didn’t even have to stray from Gerard’s face to see the way his cheeks were flooded with color.

It shocked him to his core. Gerard was _blushing_. As far as Frank knew, no Android could blush, and no company was even close to developing one that could - but that wasn’t even the biggest thing. Gerard blushed _unprompted of outside stimuli_ , meaning the signal was being distributed internally. And with the way he was clearly avoiding Frank’s eyes, it was obvious that he was embarrassed. Gerard was _embarrassed_. Gerard was having an emotional response. 

Frank wanted to freak out. He wanted to bring Gerard to the head lab and yell _'Do you see?! Do you see this, now?! We were right!'_ but he had no idea what they would do to Gerard if he did that. So with an impressive show of mental strength, he repressed all of it, quieted all of the excited buzzing in his mind, and chose instead to focus on what was happening in the moment, starting with the most pressing issue.

“Why are you blushing?” Frank asked gently, stroking the siliskin of Gerard’s stomach with his thumb in slow, soothing movements.

Gerard’s blush had faded slightly while Frank was having his internal panic, but his cheeks reddened again with the question and he squirmed a little under Frank’s hand, looking everywhere except at the human. “I’m naked,” Gerard whimpered, lifting one leg very slightly to try to cover his exposed cock.

 _Oh._

It made sense, Frank supposed, that if Gerard could feel embarrassed, he could also feel the need for modesty. But that wasn’t even the default for humans, let alone Androids. So why?

Frank moved his hand off of Gerard’s stomach to keep him from getting too uncomfortable, opting instead to cup Gerard’s cheek, gently tilting the Android’s head so he would make eye-contact with him again. “Are you uncomfortable being naked, Gerard?”

The Android closed his eyes tight and pressed his face into Frank’s hand, nodding shamefully.

Frank’s heart melted at the sight, and the butterflies slammed violently into his ribs. He stroked Gerard’s cheekbone. “It’s okay. I’m sorry. I had to cut your uniform off to repair you, and I’m tiny so I don’t think any of my clothes will fit. I can get you a blanket, though? I’ll be right back.” He began to pull his hand away from Gerard’s face so he could retrieve said blanket, but Gerard gasped out a desperate _no_ , hands shooting up to grip Frank’s arm before it could get far, pulling it back to his flushed cheek. Gerard looked at him with such an intensity Frank couldn’t move if he wanted to. 

“No. Stay. Please. I don’t want to be alone,” Gerard pleaded.

Frank went back to stroking his cheek, an easy, reassuring smile curving his lips. “Okay.”


End file.
